Ah, the joys of 2020 – they just keep coming! The month of August brought not only a rise in COVID cases, but a water shortage here in Oberursel. Somewhat disturbingly, in Germany it’s called a ‘Drinking Water Shortage’, which makes things feel even more dire. Having to contemplate how to get water to drink isn’t something I’m used to worrying about (JJ, if you’re reading this from Cali, I bet you are shaking your head!!). In Kentucky and Ohio, groundwater is so plentiful that one never questions if the faucet will work, or whether it’s OK to take a bath. And the nonstop rain that fell here in Germany from October to March gave a sense of security that this place would float away before it would dry up.

As you might have guessed, the water shortage is another consequence of climate change – apparently going from a steady seasonal climate to 6 months of drought and 6 months of rain doesn’t really work for public services like water collection. As a result, the water table is getting lower by about 2cm/year, which means the systems can’t collect what they used to. The city is authorized to purchase a quantity of water from other communities, but the amount has a hard upper limit, and the city had already purchased the maximum water they were allowed to for the year. So unfortunately we ended up on the wrong side of this graphic:

What did it mean? Luckily, the water kept coming out of the taps, but everyone was restricted to using no more water than needed for drinking, cooking, and light cleaning. No watering lawns, no washing cars, no baths, limited wash cycles, etc. Fines are heavy for violations, and your neighbors will rat you out, especially the ones you yelled at because their construction debris was falling on your head. We even heard a sound late one night (11:30pm) that turned out to be our older next-door neighbor watering her flowers under the cover of darkness. She’s nice, so we’re not telling.

We learned about the warning, thankfully, before “pulling an American” and having a backyard sprinkler party or water gun fight, which admittedly would have been nice given that we were also in the middle of the heatwave, but would have caused us to take a hit in terms of our popularity on the street. That didn’t stop numerous well-meaning Germans from warning us about it: “you know about the water shortage, right?” Maybe they just didn’t want to see Matt in his Speedo, socks & Birkenstocks washing the car and holding a beer in the front yard again?

Luckily, the community was able to weather the shortage over the course of the month, and with cooler temperatures and a few rains, we’re back to the yellow smiley. Our lawn died, but there’s a green tint emerging as we get farther into fall, and hey, I’m all for less mowing (even though I do love using our little electric mower – you can pick it up with one hand!). It wasn’t a terrible situation for us personally, and it impressed me how the Germans handled it (with concern rather than complaint) and how committed everyone seemed to be (late-night secret watering aside) to working together to manage the scarcity. I’m continually challenged and buoyed by the German approach to community and environment, and hope to take the best of it forward with us – one more thing I’m strangely grateful for during this adventure!